Feed the Birds

Bastard reached a claw towards the switch, eyes averted from the monstrous creation that lay next to it. It was best not to dwell on that bit really It wasn’t pleasant but it was, in the grand scheme of things, necessary. Next to him Diseased was coo’ing gentley to himself, feathers fluttering a little with excitement but darting eyes not showing a sign of doubt.

“Look” Bastard drew his claw back and took a few quick steps backwards “are we really sure about this? I mean, it can’t really be right can it?”

Diseased fixed him with a beady, judgemental stare.

“Of course it’s right, we all agreed didn’t we? We won’t make a habit of it, we’ll just create enough of them to get things back to how they used to be.”

It was never easy to argue with the scabrous looking grey pigeon, Bastard had tried before although in fairness he’d been in full agreement too when they first came up with the idea. Somehow though the steps between idle, rooftop speculation and grizzly reality had made it all seem a bit wrong.

“I’m not sure just you can just play around with necromancy, can you? Once you start you’re kind of in it for the duration right? And I know you don’t remember the old days, I don’t either, so how do we know they were so good? Maybe they were really crap, and it’s not so bad now is it? I found half a sausage roll yesterday, can’t get much better than that can you?”

“Typical. I knew you were spineless, living on their rubbish like they’re doing you a favour. I don’t need to remember the old days, I know the stories, I know our history. They used to worship us. They used to pay to give us food and I know you’ve seen the temple they built for us. How can that not be better than raking through bins with those manky foxes you’re so fond of?”

Bastard didn’t have an answer for that, or at least the one he did have had been aired before and never gone down well. Yes, there was a temple, anyone could see that, all you had to do was fly over. But why would a temple to pigeon-kind consist of a bloke standing on a big stick and a few excessively hairy cats? Cats hated them didn’t they? Bit of a dodgy choice for reverential worship. The foxes had agreed that it was nonsense too but there was no point bringing them into the discussion, Diseased would never listen to anything that came from creatures with four legs and fur.

“Now, are you going to flick the switch or am I?”

There was no point trying to argue, what was going to happen was going to happen whether he objected or not. It was still a bad idea though, a really bad idea. Pushing his doubts down though Bastard skipped forward again and laid his claw on the switch again, wishing he’d never helped steal it from that human flat in the first place.

It took all of his weight to push it down and even then he had to do a bit of jumping up and down to make it click into place. A sign probably, a warning from the universe not to start dabbling with this sort of madness but when it was done it was done. A buzzing echoed around the ledge, a metallic tang filling the air as the cars passing underneath their bridge drove by blindly indifferent.

For a moment nothing happened, just long enough for Bastard to hope to himself that it wasn’t going to work anyway and that they’d been saved from themselves. Before long though it started to twitch, first just a curling claw, one amongst the fifty or so they’d stitched onto it, but then came a real spasm of movement. One which shook the thing’s entire body and sent both pigeons jumping back, wings half opened to take flight.

Then their creation sat up.

“Fuck” said Bastard.

“Coo” said Diseased.

The creature looked confused, which was understandable. The parts had been eclectically gathered from wherever they could be found. There was a fair bit of pigeon about it, limbs and feathery patches culled from the unfortunate victims of traffic accidents and culinary mishaps with bleach. They’d wanted it to be too big though, too big for the frail bones of one of their own to support so they’d started shopping around. A human leg here, a foxes tail there, the skin of an elephant they’d pecked to death at London Zoo, the liver of a badger. Things had started to get out of control and what they had now was an unrecognisable hybrid the size of a car, barely fitting onto the arch of the bridge and perilously close to collapsing it, or at least falling to land on a passing bus.

“What do we do now then?”

Bastard was speaking from the edge, eager to fly off as soon as it seemed polite.

“Well we… erm… we send it to the temple, that sounds right, yeah. It goes there, reminds them they’re supposed to serve us, we all fly in for some seed and worship, job’s a good’un. Simple.”

“You really think it can get there? I mean, we did give it a lot of wings but they don’t really look like they’re going to work do they?”

The creature, flailing around now making pitiable moaning sounds, tried to pull itself into what might conceivably have passed for a sitting position but for the excess of potential arses.

“It can walk then, even better, it’ll really make an impact. Now, just go over there and tell it what to do. Flying Rat’s brain is in there somewhere, you two were friends.”

Flying Rat’s was one of the brains in there it was true, but it wasn’t exactly alone.

“No, you’re alright, you can do it, you’ve got a way with words. Commanding voice you know.”

“Coward” Diseased mumbled unconvincingly “fine, I’ll do it, we created it after all, I’m sure it looks up to us.”

Of the dozen or so eyes the creature had it was, in fact, simultaniously managing to look up, down and sideways at them but it didn’t seem like the time to get pedantic. True to his word Diseased did edge towards the monstrous creation and with as stern a tone as he could manage through the evident terror began to speak to their new friend.

“Now, we created you, we’re your gods, in a way. Us pigeons and no one else so you’ll do what your told won’t you?”

“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghl!”

Taking the scream of anguish from one of the more human looking mouths as a yes he pushed on.

“Good… good… Now, just over there” Diseased gestured with a wing “there’s a, er, holy place. Our holy place. Now you be a good little… creature, make your way there and tell them they need to start worshipping the pigeons again. Use one of your human mouths, they’ll understand that.”

The thing’s eyes showed a glimmer of understanding of the pigeon’s words, at least three or four of them did, the rest seemed to be silently screaming more than anything. Although they weren’t alone for long as, with a sudden blur of movement, it spasmodically and much to it’s own surprise managed to roll sideways sending both birds flying and bringing up a chorus of shouts and terror from a bus passing below as it slammed through the roof.

The last thing Bastard saw of the beast was a crowd of shocked and confused commuters desperately trying to clamber around, through and over it in a rush for the stairs. Doing their best to ignore both the monstrous obstacle in their way and the handful of people it had managed to crush beneath it. On the plus side though the bus was going in the right direction at least.